1. Technical Field
The invention relates to a printing authentication system, a printing device, a device management apparatus and a non-transitory computer readable recording medium.
2. Related Art
These days, in a printing system that is put in practice in an office, a user management based on authentication has become common. For example, a security print that uses authentication has been known. In the security print, even if a user, who has operated a personal computer (PC) to log in a system, makes a request for printing to a printing device by using the PC, the printing is not immediately executed and a print job (which indicates the print request made by the user. In some cases, it indicates print data that is a target of the print request) is spooled (i.e., stored with being in a standby state). At this time, a requester ID (user identification information of the requester who made the request for print job), which is accompanied with the print job or is separately recognized, is also stored. The user identification information is identification information that is uniquely given to each user (hereinafter, referred to as a “user ID”). After the print request, when the user performs an input for authentication with an IC card and the like to the printing device, i.e., inputs the user ID (user identification information) and data for authentication to the printing device, an authentication process is executed. When the authentication is valid (successful), the printing device compares the authenticated user ID and the requester ID of the spooled print job and executes the printing of the print job which has been recognized as valid. At this time, the log information (process history) of the print process and information of the number of output sheets or output pages for billing and the like are also recorded in association with the print job. The above process is just exemplary, and there are various methods of the security print.
In environments in which the printing system is operated, plural systems for managing the users are operated in many cases. As core systems that give users user IDs (i.e., accounts) and manages them, there are various systems such as universal systems such as Active Directory (Microsoft Corporation) and Open Directory (Apple Computer, Inc.), and systems for individual intended purposes such as a drawing management system and a workflow management system. When a system is built, sometimes there is a case where the plural core systems co-exist in accordance with the past history or operating situations. In this case, typically, one user is individually given with user IDs from the core systems, respectively. The user logs in a core system to be used from now with the user ID that is conformable to the core system and then uses a variety of resources on the core system.
More specifically, when the user who has logged in the system makes a request for printing to the printing device and the printing device spools data of a job regarding the print request, the data is spooled in association with the user ID of the user in the core system. The data of the spooled job includes, in general, print data that describes an image of a document to be printed in the page description language (PDL). If one user logs in a core system and requests a printing device to print a document that has been edited in that environment and then logs in another core system and requests the printing device to print a document that has been edited in that environment, the printing device spools the two jobs regarding the print requests in association with the user IDs of the user of the respective core systems. In this case, the respective jobs are managed based on the two different user IDs. In order to print out the print data of the respective jobs, the user should input the unique user IDs for authentication to the printing device with respect to the respective jobs.
In this manner, if the plural systems having independent authentication devices co-exist, plural pieces of user identification information may be given to the same actual user (actually using subject). In this case, in the entire plural systems, the authentication is individually performed while assuming that the using subject exists for each of the user identification information, regardless of whether or not the actual users are the same. Further, in some cases, a same core system may provide a same user with plural pieces of user identification information. Alternatively, a same user may be given with plural pieces of user identification information due to other reasons.